Stanford 3MT 3rd Place Winner: Colette Benko #3mt #education #stanford #shorts

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Who here has posted a photo on social media?

[00:00:05]Okay, quite a few of us. Well, you may be surprised to know that just like us, ourselves, like to take selfies.

[00:00:14]And they post these selfie updates on their form of social media, I like to call the immunogram.

[00:00:21]A special type of immune cell then scrolls through the immunogram looking for when your everyday cell goes from posting happy and healthy updates to those indicating it may be infected with a virus or even becoming cancerous.

[00:00:36]As you may have guessed, cells take selfies differently than us. Instead of posing in front of a camera, cells display peptides, which are small pieces of protein on their surface.

[00:00:49]An immune cell known as a CD8 positive T cell can recognize these peptides and sound the alarm when something doesn't look right.

[00:00:57]For a long time, it was assumed that these peptides were randomly selected from proteins in the cell. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.

[00:01:06]We think cells behave a bit more like us on social media, carefully curating which photos or peptides to post, not just random pictures from their camera roll.

[00:01:16]And like a social media influencer that's planning in advance what photos to take, we think this creation may be happening before the protein is even made.

[00:01:26]In my research, we're trying to understand the rules of this creation and what factors a cell uses to decide what proteins to post.

[00:01:35]To do this, we look for proteins that despite being less abundant are displayed really well on the immunogram.

[00:01:43]We then examine what are the similarities between these proteins, specifically in the instructions for making them.

[00:01:50]Using public data, we've found that certain similarities may have a substantial impact on peptide display.

[00:01:57]This is the biology inside of every single one of us. It's sitting, it's standing in this room.

[00:02:07]Everyday, your cells are developing mutations, getting infected with viruses, and this communication between cells and the immune system helps us stay alive.

[00:02:19]When things on the immunogram go wrong, cancer and viruses go undetected and immune cells can target healthy cells by accident, causing autoimmune diseases.

[00:02:30]By better understanding why certain proteins are posted, we will better understand these diseases. More importantly, we can use this to develop more effective immunotherapeutics and help our cells post better updates.

[00:02:45]So, next time you're scrolling through social media, just remember that your immune cells are doom scrolling right there with you, and we study how their content is curated. Thank you.